I love mineral foundation – I love the natural looking, light to medium coverage, but sometimes I need to build it up to respond to bad skin days. I had been looking for a green swap for my Bare Escentuals mineral foundation which had been a favourite for a long time. Enter, Inika mineral foundation. Looks quite similar on the outside, looks quite similar on the inside, similar price bracket.

The consistency of the two powders is very similar but my first impression of the Inika mineral foundation was that it took more work to build the coverage. It didn’t deal with the redness that I get across my nose and cheeks in the same way so I needed to build the coverage a few times before it did the trick. Inika is a very fine powder, so buffs in and blends beautifully. That makes it appear that you have great skin but redness, blemishes and dark circles all need an additional concealer.

My skin gets oily quickly and this holds up quite nicely to that, although my skin will get progressively shinier throughout the afternoon. Weirdly, I tried the Bare Minerals Matte foundation at one point, which made my skin much oilier than the regular kind. I wouldn’t describe Inika as particularly long lasting, but for an average week day it does a perfectly good job.

I’m not convinced that I would buy this again straight away, because I feel like there’s a whole world of other natural foundations out there for me to explore, but I would happily put it on my list of trusted favourites. Inika is available for £24.85 and I got mine from Naturisimo.

I’d love to know, do you have any recommendations for natural foundations?

Earlier this year, I revamped my skin care routine and started double cleansing whenever I wear SPF or make up (so every day then…). This little beauty was one of my discoveries. I use this cleansing oil as a first cleanse, I just use one pump on clean hands and massage it all over my face and eyes. I love how it feels like it’s breaking everything down, all that foundation, mascara, eyeliner, all just melts down (and smears all over your face so you do look a bit ridiculous). You then dampen your hands and it emulsifies into a milk and washes away.

As I use this as my first cleanse, I’m happy to just rinse this off. If I used this on it’s own, I think I’d be much more inclined to use a face cloth to really clean it off. After all, this is cleansing oil and my oily skin doesn’t need any little helpers hanging around longer than they’re needed. I tend to follow this with micellar water to clear away any remaining eye make up then use another cleanser to wash my face again. As I wash it off so thoroughly, I’ve never had any problems with it.

Even though this is a Body Shop product, it feels like quite a luxury cleansing oil when I’m using it. This is probably because I’m dying for a cleansing balm like Emma Hardie, but I can’t quite justify the price tag, so perhaps there’s a bit of my imagination going on?! It’s also nice and gentle on my skin, which can sometimes flare up with redness, leaving it soft and well hydrated.

It has a light smell, but nothing too over powering and is a pleasure to use. It costs £10 for 200ml and has lasted me for about 4 months so far (I still have plenty left) so all in all I think it’s a bargain.

Let me know if you have any cleansing balms or oils that you’d recommend! I love reading your comments and they’re always appreciated. 🙂

We have entered Autumn quite abruptly here. There I was, bobbing along, thinking ‘Ahhh Autumn is so lovely, look at the leaves, look at the snuggly blankets, look at ALL THE PUMPKINS!!!’, happily forgetting that actually, Autumn can get really damp and cold. I’m all for Autumn, I do love it, but getting around when it’s windy, rainy and chilly is hard on the skin. My hands in particular become more crackly and dry that an extremely dry crackly thing. This means that I need industrial strength moisturisation and to find the best hand cream that I can. My absolute favourite hand cream is L’Occitance Cherry Blossom, which is lovely to use and smells how I imagine actual heaven to smell. But, when the going gets tough, it just can’t cut it on it’s own.

Aveeno hand cream is probably the most effective hand cream I’ve ever tried. It contains colloidal oatmeal for moisture and says that it lasts 24 hours through hand washing. Whilst I think the 24 hours bit is a tad dramatic, it does hold up nicely when you wash your hands and you don’t instantly feel like you need to apply more. It’s very effective but it’s also a no frills moisturiser which means it smells less like heaven and more like, erm, hand cream. When I say that, I mean that it smells of hand cream without anything added to make it smell lovely. It’s actually quite hard to describe, it’s not a pleasant smell, but it isn’t unpleasant or overpowering either. What it lacks in luxury, it makes up for in effectiveness and considering the price (£5.45) it is really good value for money and easy to find in a lot of shops. And it saves me from monster claws – brilliant. It’s also on offer in Boots right now, for the bargain price of £3.63.

As always, i LOVE your comments. Let me know if you’ve ever tried this hand cream, or if you have a favourite.